Obama at various times over the past year has taken "Winning the Future," "A Fair Shot," "An America Built to Last," and "We Can't Wait" for test drives, but none has found lasting traction. Vice President Biden has suggested one possible bumper sticker slogan: "GM's alive; bin Laden's dead."

They will pummel [Romney] for being a vulture-vampire capitalist at Bain Capital. They will pound him for being a miserable failure as the governor of Massachusetts. They will mash him for being a water-carrier for Paul Ryan's Social Darwinist fiscal program. They will maul him for being a combination of Jerry Falwell, Joe Arpaio, and John Galt on a range of issues that strike deep chords with the Obama coalition. "We're gonna say, 'Let's be clear what he would do as president,' " Plouffe explains. "Potentially abortion will be criminalized. Women will be denied contraceptive services. He's far right on immigration. He supports efforts to amend the Constitution to ban gay marriage"...

[T]o a very real degree, 2008's candidate of hope stands poised to become 2012's candidate of fear...

For anyone still starry-eyed about Obama, the months ahead will provide a bracing revelation about what he truly is: not a savior, not a saint, not a man above the fray, but a brass-knuckled, pipe-hitting, red-in-tooth-and-claw brawler determined to do what is necessary to stay in power--in other words, a politician.

I see the logic but I wonder whether Romney is scary enough for these purposes. As for revealing Obama to be just another power-hungry politician, I wouldn't call that playing to his strengths.

How about "The Audacity of Despair"?

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